Kenny White

Astonished audiences often ask KENNY WHITE after a live performance, “How come I’ve never heard of you?” when in fact, the pianist, singer/songwriter, producer and arranger has been very well known in the NYC recording scene for decades. He comes to the world of the touring singer-songwriter following a long and successful musical journey. LONG LIST OF PRIORS, his aptly named new album, is the latest collection of original songs: indelible snapshots of the human condition, from heart-wrenching to hilarious and observed with the precision of a diamond cutter. As on his past recordings, Kenny White’s work in the studio enabled him to assemble a who’s who of musicians and guest artists, including David Crosby, Peter Wolf, Larry Campbell, Amy Helm and Catherine Russell, along with his regular band featuring the dexterous Duke Levine on guitar, shape-shifting Shawn Pelton (Saturday Night Live) on drums, and the masterful Marty Ballou on bass. Now add the horns, strings, and other surprising arrangements, and LONG LIST OF PRIORS is a refreshingly original and multi-layered singer-songwriter recording.

White spent five song-less years before catching the first spark that would soon lead to LONG LIST OF PRIORS. Kenny says, “As usual, this became a deeply personal record for me. A chronicle of how the heart copes with the passing years, these tumultuous times, and the struggle to find simplicity in a complex world. It took being able to tune out the noise and interference of that world before I could hear what was inside me. That’s the trick. I also wanted to make a pure ‘sounding’ record. Where you can lose yourself in the sonic landscape and feel like you are in the room with the musicians and singers.”

Born in New York City and raised across the river in Fort Lee, New Jersey, Kenny White began his career in the 1970s, touring exclusively as the keyboard player for Jonathan Edwards and Livingston Taylor, with whom he opened Linda Ronstadt’s legendary, “Living in the USA” tour. He then became a fixture in the NYC studio scene throughout the 1980s and 1990s, producing and arranging literally hundreds of commercials for TV and radio, beginning with “The Unsinkable Taste of Cheerios,” nearly seven years of Chevrolet’s “Heartbeat of America” campaign, and countless ads for the Coca Cola company. Commercial work enabled White to direct artists as renowned and varied as Gladys Knight, Ms.Ronstadt, Mavis Staples, Ricky Skaggs, and Aaron Neville. He even was tapped to conduct a portion of the London Symphony Orchestra for a series of commercials for Greyhound bus lines.

White worked on many film soundtracks as a contributing writer/musician including Message in a Bottle, Where the Heart Is and four films by Indie-director laureate, John Sayles. His piano solos set the scenes throughout the beloved A Walk on the Moon, which often gets a resurrection on the anniversary of the Woodstock Festival. Kenny also appears on dozens of recordings of other musicians, including Marc Cohn’s platinum debut album.

Whenever he could break free from the four walls of the recording studios, Kenny would often support other musicians in live concerts. After being hailed by reviewers from the New York Times to the San Francisco Chronicle for his “thrilling” and “unique” piano playing, White chose, in 2001, to devote himself to making his own album, one that not only showcased his talent as a musician, but also as a lyricist. Friends such as Cheryl Wheeler invited White to tour as an opening act on behalf of his first album, UNINVITED GUEST. Both the album and White’s skill on piano and guitar, coupled with his warm and charming on-stage personality were met with critical acclaim. An early copy of his follow-up record, SYMPHONY IN 16 BARS, landed in the hands of Judy Collins, who then signed him to her own Wildflower Records label, releasing the CD in 2005.She often invited White to open her concerts. The standing ovations he received in those large concert halls, encouraged White to follow up with the EP, NEVER LIKE THIS. His subsequent recording, COMFORT IN THE STATIC, was released in 2010 to wide-ranging praise, landing on many “Favorite Album of the Year” lists. The late Pete Fornatale declared on his WFUV-FM show, Mixed Bag, “I know by June what my favorite album of the year is. I cannot imagine hearing a more riveting or compelling recording between now and December. It’s all locked up.”

Kenny White’s record producing credits include Shawn Colvin’s Grammy-nominated song, “I Don’t Know Why,” as well as the last four solo CDs for Peter Wolf, formerly with the J. Geils Band: FOOL’S PARADE, SLEEPLESS (named one of Rolling Stone’s “500 Greatest Albums of All Time”), MIDNIGHT SOUVENIRS, which debuted at #45, and the 2016 release A CURE FOR LONELINESS, which reached #23 on the Americana chart in its first 6 weeks. Kenny often joins Wolf’s Midnight Ramblers band on tour, honing his celebrated rock & roll keyboard skills, and to play onstage alongside his own LONG LIST OF PRIOR musicians, Duke Levine and Marty Ballou.

The productions with Wolf afforded Kenny the opportunity to work with an array of guest artists including Mick Jagger, Merle Haggard, Shelby Lynne, Steve Earle, Neko Case, and to record a track side by side with Keith Richards.

White’s music has been discovered in the UK and Europe, and he recently traveled to Livorno, Italy, to accept the International Songwriting Award at the Annual Premio Ciampi music festival. He often attracts an intriguing patronage to his concerts. Robert Plant was recently sighted in rapt attention at one of White’s solo shows in the UK and Jackson Browne, the same, at one of Kenny’s L.A. shows.

He still, from time to time, tours with Judy Collins throughout North America and performs the duet “Veterans’ Day” on her recent BOHEMIAN CD. He often shares a stage with his good friend Cheryl Wheeler, appearing on her live recording, GREETINGS, which he also produced. And though he has all but given up his days as a sideman, in 2014, he accepted an offer by none other than Tom Jones to play in his ‘soul quartet’ for a sold-out, three week US tour.

Kenny is currently touring in support of LONG LIST OF PRIORS.

TICKETS:
Front Row – $25 in advance, $30 at the door
General Admission – $20 in advance, $25 at the door

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Dom Flemons

Dom Flemons is originally from Phoenix, Arizona and currently lives in the Washington, D.C. area. He is known as “The American Songster” since his repertoire of music covers nearly 100 years of American folklore, ballads, and tunes. Flemons is a music scholar, historian, record collector, and a multi-instrumentalist. He is considered an expert player on the Banjo, Fife, Guitar, Harmonica, Percussion, Quills, and Rhythm Bones. He has performed with leading musicians, such as Mike Seeger, Joe Thompson, Martin Simpson, Boo Hanks, Taj Mahal, Old Crow Medicine Show, and Guy Davis. He has been a professional touring musician for the past ten years and has traveled around the nation and the world presenting traditional folk and roots music to diverse audiences. Flemons has performed as a soloist at prestigious venues, such as Carnegie Hall, Cecil Sharp House, the Grand Ole Opry, the Opening Ceremony for the National Museum of African American History and Culture, National Cowboy Poetry Gathering, and the Newport Folk Festival and he represented the United States at the 2017 Rainforest World Music Festival in Kuching, Malaysia.

In 2005, Flemons co-founded the Carolina Chocolate Drops who have won a GRAMMY for Best Traditional Folk in 2010. He left the group to pursue his solo career in 2014. In 2016 the Carolina Chocolate Drops were inducted into the North Carolina Music Hall of Fame and are featured in the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture.

In 2014, Flemons released a critically acclaimed solo album “Prospect Hill” through Music Maker Relief Foundation. In 2016, Flemons released a DUO album with British musician Martin Simpson titled “Ever Popular Favourites” on Fledg’ling Records. He launched a podcast, American Songster Radio, on WUNC Public Radio and filmed two instructional DVD’s through Stefan Grossman’s Guitar Workshop. In 2017, Flemons was featured on David Holt’s State of Music on PBS and performed as bluesman Joe Hill Louis on CMT’s original hit television show “Sun Records”.

In March 2018, Flemons released his solo album titled “Dom Flemons Presents Black Cowboys” on GRAMMY Award-winning record label Smithsonian Folkways. This recording is part of the African American Legacy Recordings series, co-produced with the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture in Washington, D.C.

Flemons has published articles for the Oxford American, New York Times Magazine, Ecotone, No Depression Magazine, and Mother Jones. He is currently serving on the Board of Directors for Folk Alliance International and his collection and memorabilia is housed in the Southern Folklife Collection at UNC-Chapel Hill.

For Americana godfather David Bromberg, it all began with the blues. His incredible journey spans five-and-a-half decades, and includes – but is not limited to – adventures with Bob Dylan, George Harrison, Jerry Garcia, and music and life lessons from seminal blues guitarist Reverend Gary Davis, who claimed the young Bromberg as a son. A musician’s musician, Bromberg’s mastery of several stringed instruments (guitar, fiddle, Dobro, mandolin), and multiple styles is legendary, leading Dr. John to declare him an American icon. In producing John Hartford’s hugely influential Aereo-Plain LP, Bromberg even co-invented a genre: Newgrass.

Add in a period of self-imposed exile from his passion (1980-2002), during which he became a renowned violin expert, and Wilmington, Delaware’s cultural ambassador; top that off with a triumphant return to music-making, and you have an amazing tale leading back to one place: the blues.

Now, with The Blues, the Whole Blues, and Nothing But the Blues, his first release for Red House Records, Bromberg and multi-Grammy-winning producer/accompanist Larry Campbell (Dylan, Levon Helm, Paul Simon) focus on the music David discovered in high school, when, circa late 50s, he was introduced to a friend’s dad’s collection of blues 78s. He’d only just taken up guitar as a means to pass the time while in bed with the measles.

“I loved those 78s so much,” says David, “I taped them on a portable reel-to-reel, so I could listen at home and learn.”

That love is evident in The Blues, the Whole Blues and Nothing But the Blues. The album is both blues primer and an opportunity to witness a master embracing this distinctly American music with passion and grace.

“There’s a lot of different types of blues on there,” Bromberg notes. “We decided to start it off with a dyed-in-the-wool blues [Robert Johnson’s “Walkin’ Blues”], but there’s also country blues [“Kentucky Blues”], and gospel-influenced blues [“Yield Not”].”

Bromberg, a onetime sideman himself, is quick to give props to his long-running road-and-studio cohorts: Butch Amiot (bass), Josh Kanusky (drums), Mark Cosgrove (guitar), Nate Grower (fiddle), and Peter Ecklund (cornet). Of producer, arranger, multi-instrumentalist, fellow Reverend Gary Davis acolyte, and old friend Larry Campbell, he says, “To use a baseball analogy, Larry is like a star at any position in the infield, because he can play them all.”

Since meeting in the early 80’s, Campbell and Bromberg had crossed paths many times. They finally worked together in Levon Helm’s studio for David’s 2013 return-to-form Only Slightly Mad. “He wanted to do a Chicago blues album then,” Larry says. “But we decided to remind folks of what he does better than anyone: the whole gamut of Americana, the full Brombergian. And we got some new fans. For this one, we went back to the blues, and made use of David’s great vocabulary in all veins of the genre.”

Bromberg’s guitar work remains a marvel; amped electric lead – both slide and fretted – and delicately powerful acoustic fingerpicking propel these songs with the same force that made him the go-to guy for acts ranging from the Eagles to Link Wray to Phoebe Snow. This is a man who can go full-on Chicago gutbucket with “You Don’t Have to Go” (a Bromberg original), then slay with the jazz inflections of Ray Charles’ “A Fool for You,” rendered here intimately solo. Although Bromberg points out he’s not the same guitarist he was before his two decades away from performing and recording. “I play differently,” he says. “I can’t play as fast, but playing slower gives me more time to think about what I’m doing.”

“He’s always able to plug into the emotion of a song,” Campbell says. “He’s incredibly inventive as a player. Sometimes restrictions can be good.”

Listeners can actually hear what the years have given Bromberg in the spartan, acoustic “Delia.” Bromberg originally covered this traditional nugget on his 1972 self-titled debut – a live, solo rendition with a spoken-word break. The new version features Campbell and Bromberg in the studio, revisiting Bromberg’s live arrangement from their occasional duo tours. It is mesmerizing, with gravitas only experience can bring. “Larry and I have played ‘Delia’ a lot,” Bromberg says. “I love what he does on it.”

“When I first started,” Bromberg says, “singing was something I did between guitar solos. But during the period I did so little performing, I took some voice lessons, and now, I know more what I’m doing. I love singing now. Love it.”

Larry Campbell was impressed at the newfound vocal chops, too. “He is a better vocalist than ever,” he says. “He’s strong, and present. None of the songs took more than three takes. And he was able to take the old folk song ‘900 Miles’ [a “railroad song” made famous by Odetta and Woody Guthrie], and turn it into an electric blues that’s a real high point of the album for me.”

Although he remains the proprietor of the beloved David Bromberg Fine Violins in Wilmington, Delaware – “I love my shop,” he says – Bromberg makes time to tour with his quintet, and he’s already included every song in his live repertoire (save “Yield Not,” which requires a choir), from The Blues, the Whole Blues and Nothing But the Blues. As ever, he brings his characteristic devotional intensity to the music, invigorating his surprise third act with the same passion he felt as a teen, spinning those blues 78s, just before the road called.

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Common Ground Coffeehouse
At the First Unitarian Society of Westchester, Hastings

presents

Amber Rubarth

Amber Rubarth has performed her music far and wide, touring solo across South Africa, Europe, Japan, and all throughout America with her “unique gift of knocking down walls with songs so strong they sound like classics from another era.” -Acoustic Guitar Magazine. She was recently cast alongside Joe Purdy to star in the feature film ‘American Folk’ which won numerous festival awards and was released in theaters January 2018 (Good Deed Entertainment). The film received high praise with the Hollywood Reporter calling it “Superb… A heartfelt homage to American folk music,” and Rolling Stone premiering the first single as “Enchanting… beautifully recalls several of the duets that John Prine has sung so effectively with frequent partner Iris DeMent, yet it offers the added bonus of discovering two wondrous new voices.”

Rubarth left home at 17 years old to become a chainsaw sculptor in Nevada. At 21, she quit and decided to begin writing songs and teaching herself guitar. One of her early originals was awarded Grand Prize in NPR’s Mountain Stage New Song contest and led to her recording an album produced by Jacquire King (Tom Waits, Norah Jones). She has performed hundreds of stages around the world, from the early days opening for a flea circus at a Texas theme park, to performing an original duet with Jason Mraz at Carnegie Hall, to full orchestral arrangements of her songs with the Ithaca Chamber Orchestra woven into classical works. She moves fluidly between genres, creating a unique palette of instrumentation for what best serves the song. This fluidity and curiosity has led to her being hand-picked to open for many diverse artists including Emmylou Harris, Kenny Loggins, Richie Havens, Dr. Ralph Stanley, and Loudon Wainwright III. She continues to reinvent herself, most recently with her 2017 release ‘Wildflowers in the Graveyard,’ a cycle of songs exploring nature’s graceful relationship between life, death, and rebirth. The album is self-penned by Rubarth and recorded in analog to 2” tape with co-producer Matt Andrews (Gillian Welch, Dave Rawlings, Dawes) in her hometown of Nashville. “I’m standing at the edge of where the river meets the sky / Holding my head up and closing my eyes / And all the answers I’ve been hoping to find are written in the water.”

After many years of solo touring, Rubarth lights up these days with collaborations in both film and music. She has written original songs and score for numerous films including Sundance festival winner ‘Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work’ and the super-marathon documentary ‘Desert Runners.’ She co-founded ‘The Paper Raincoat,’ a Brooklyn-based iTunes Indie Artist Spotlight band featured in Disney’s ‘The Last Song,’ the CW’s ‘One Tree Hill,’ and Paste Magazine who said: “We think the world might be a little better if everyone heard this record.” In 2016 she recorded a live-to-tape single microphone album with her folk trio ‘Applewood Road’ which the London Sunday Times gave 5 stars, calling it “a flawless set that has to be the most haunting release of the past year” which led to performances at Glastonbury Music Festival, Cambridge Folk Festival, a UK tour supporting Mary Chapin Carpenter, and her original arrangement and performance featured in the ‘BBC Sisters in Country’ documentary with Dolly Parton, Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris.

Tickets:Front row: $25 in advance, $30 at the doorGeneral admission: $20 in advance, $25 dollars at the door

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Oliver Esposito

Introducing Oliver Esposito: Songwriter. Singer. Multi-instrumentalist. 18 years old. It should be no surprise that in 2018, folk music at its finest is being made by a teenager. Esposito’s music is an acoustic mixture of folk, classical, bluegrass, an unsurprising blend considering the company this young artist has been keeping. In 2012, Amos Lee, in his headlining set at the Rocky Mountain Folks Festival, introduced 12-year old Oliver to the stage to join his band. “In that instant, the lives of everyone in attendance changed for the better,” wrote The Huffington Post about that appearance. Since childhood, Esposito has shared the stage with a veritable who’s who of the folk/bluegrass community, including David Grisman, Tim O’Brien, Chris Thile. “I’ve had the great privilege to play with some incredible musicians in my life. Rarely have I come across one who is both virtuosic and profoundly raw and soulful at the same time. I don’t think many people are given either, let alone both. Oliver’s got it.” says Langhorne Slim. “It’s mind blowing to watch, spiritually elevating to play along with, and damn exciting to see what this incredible human has in store for us all.”

Esposito’s latest EP, “Ghosts Underneath My Skin” was recorded and produced by Neilson Hubbard (Mary Gauthier, Kim Richey, Amy Speace) in Nashville, TN, with contributions by Will Kimbrough (Emmylou Harris) on guitars, Kira Small (Garth Brooks, Martina McBride) on keyboards and vocals, Eamon McLoughlin (The Grand Ole Opry band) on fiddle. Recorded mostly live in a few days, these 6 songs touch on issues ranging from gun violence to the refugee situation to growing up queer in America. Yet, this is no pedantic collection of political folk songs. The record grooves, excites, rocks and fills with memorable melodic hooks.

Brave. Bold. Simple. By Track 3, we know we are listening to someone deeply committed to truth-telling. “Breathe” begins as a poem, a tumble of words over mandolin, guitar and piano, until they break into melody “and when I finally spoke those words…it felt like coming up for air. For the first time in 16 years, I can breathe.” It is one of the most direct statements of self from any songwriter, any artist, at any age, and it is exhilarating.

A Colorado native currently living in Boulder, Esposito’s unique approach to schooling has allowed them to pursue what they love from an early age. Homeschooled until high school, they began piano, voice and guitar at age five and mandolin at age eight. Esposito currently attends Berklee College of Music in Boston.

In Oliver’s own words:

I believe in a future where every unique person and experience is valued, where no one is treated as less than, where those with more privilege use [their voices] to lift up those with less privilege, to give those who don’t have a voice the space to have a voice, a future of less boxes and labels, less kids growing up thinking they don’t deserve to live because of who they are, less kids getting bullied, less people trying to be something they’re not because they believe it’s the only way to be ok.

FRONT ROW: $20 in advance, $25 at the doorGENERAL ADMISSION: $18 in advance, $20 at the door

Amanda Anne Platt
& The Honeycutters

With special guest Monica Rizzio

“We’re switching things up a little. After four albums I’ve decided to step out and start using my own name. It’s something that a lot of people have encouraged me to do over the years, and I guess that 2017 just felt right.” That name, Amanda Anne Platt & The Honeycutters, is also the title of the band’s latest album, released by Organic Records on June 9, 2017. “We’re keeping The Honeycutters too because we don’t want to confuse people…really, we’ve always been Amanda Anne Platt and the Honeycutters. I think I’ve just gotten to a place where I feel comfortable enough to be in the spotlight.”

Lyrically driven, the songs on Amanda Anne Platt & The Honeycutters blend the band’s old-school country roots attitude with their shared influences of rock and folk. Amanda says of the album, “I think it’s just about life and all that that entails. Including but not limited to death, strangers, birthdays, money, leaving, arriving, seasons, corruption, and love.”

Performing along with Platt, The Honeycutters are Matt Smith on pedal steel and Stratocaster, Rick Cooper on bass, Josh Milligan on drums and harmony vocals, and Evan Martin on keys and Telecaster.

Amanda Anne Platt & The Honeycutters is the group’s third release on Organic Records, and fifth album. Assembling the same the same team as 2016’s On The Ropes Balsam Range’s Tim Surrett steps in for the second time to co-produce this album along with Amanda. Its thirteen tracks were recorded, mixed, and mastered by Scott Barnett at Crossroads Studios in Arden, NC.

There is an empathetic and charming wit engrained in Amanda’s songwriting. She has a knack for accessing a deep well of emotion and applying it to her story-telling, whether she is writing from her own experiences or immersing herself into the melody of emotions in another person’s life.

In the lead off track, “Birthday Song,” Amanda writes with a gentle optimism, “Every time it gets colder I get another year older… I start looking for lines in the bathroom mirror… but when I lay down at night I swear I must have done something right… cause I’m still so damn glad to be here… I’ve been trying to love the questions, and keep on guessing.” Written just before her 30th birthday, Platt calls the song, “a summation of everything I learned in that decade.”

There is an easygoing warmth to the album, enhanced by the its refined arrangement and production; from the upbeat “Diamond in the Rough” to the poetic and observational “Eden” to the very personal, yet universal, “Brand New Start” to “Late Summer’s Child” (an ode to her favorite season) and “Rare Thing” (a song commissioned from Platt from a fan as a love song to his wife that ended up being included on the album. “Your mama said that it would never last… but these years go by so fast… and you’re the song I’m humming to myself as I’m counting the miles… you’re such a rare thing.”) One can feel it even in songs with a more solemn concept behind them like, like “Long Ride,” which speaks of living in the moment in the face of mortality.

Platt wrote “Learning How To Love Him” after hearing an acquaintance of hers talk about learning that her husband of 40+ years was terminally ill. She says, “What really struck me was how she described the tenderness that the news brought back to their relationship.” Amanda sings, “’I woke last night and I felt so afraid, I turned on the light and shook him awake and we stared at the ceiling, listening to the sink drip… I spent my whole life learning how to love him and I never loved him more than I do today.”

The successes of On The Ropes [2016] and Me Oh My [2015] have propelled Amanda Anne Platt and The Honeycutters onto the national scene. They have been featured on NPR’s World Cafe’s Sense of Place, NPR’s Mountain Stage, Nashville’s Music City Roots, and Folk Alley and have performed at AmericanaFest, MerleFest, and IBMA. On The Ropes debuted at #39 on iTunes Top 40 Country Chart on release day and landed on a plethora of year end lists including placing #35 on the Top 100 Albums played on Americana Radio in 2016 and landing at #1 on Western North Carolina’s WNCW Radio’s Year End Listeners Poll of Top Albums of 2016!

On The Ropes hit #11 on the EuroAmericana Chart and The UK’s Julian Piper with Acoustic Magazine says, “Amanda Platt has one of those gorgeous heartache-drenched voices that brings to mind Loretta Lynn or Sheryl Crow.”

Opening the evening will be Monica Rizzio, who has also shared the stage with Chris Botti, Boz Scaggs, Diana Krall, Joan Osborne, and Slaid Cleaves, among others. She has played the Main Stage at Strawberry Park Bluegrass festival, and is a frequent collaborator with the Cape Cod Symphony Orchestra. In December of 2014, she performed as part of Tom Rush’s band at his annual show at Symphony Hall in Boston. She played fiddle, guitar, ukulele and sang backups, as well as performing her originals “Luckier Than You” & “Willie Nelson” with Red Molly backing her up.

FRONT ROW: $25 in advance, $30 at the door
GENERAL ADMISSION: $20 in advance, $25 at the door

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About Common Ground

Common Ground Community Concerts is the producer the long-standing Common Ground Coffeehouse at the First Unitarian Society of Westchester at 25 Old Jackson Avenue, outside of Hastings-on-Hudson NY. Four times a year, we also present concerts at historic Irvington Town Hall Theater at 85 Main Street in Irvington NY and partner with community groups and non-profits to produce concerts in other locations as well.